Sources

  1. Reports drawn from the two-sheet Excel document provided by Amnesty International Nairobi:
    • Kenya Alliance for Advancement of Children / The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists / Child Rights Advisory and Documentation Legal Centre / Coalition on Violence Against Women (2005): State Violence in Kenya. An Alternative Report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
      “State Violence in Kenya. An Alternative Report to the United Nations Human Rights Commit- tee” is a joint report by three Kenyan Human Rights Organizations and the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT). Under the aegis of the European Union and the Swiss Confederation its findings were presented at the 83rd session of the UN-Human Rights Committee. The authors examine state violence and torture in Kenya. Some individual cases are described in detail. The cases are, however, not connected to counter-terrorism actions or the crackdown of the Mungiki. (Link to Report).
    • KNCHR (2008): “The Cry of Blood.” Report on ExtraJudicial Killings and Disappearances.
      “The Cry of Blood” is a report delivered by KNCHR, Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights. The report deals with enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings as well as other forms of human rights violations of members of the Mungiki movement between 2007-2008 as reported by witnesses and verified by visits to mortuaries and other fact-finding visits. During the time period from 2007-2008 the government carried out a major crackdown against the Mungiki movement as a reaction to an increase of attacks on matatu operators by suspected Mungiki members. KNCHR documents 97 incidents with sometimes more than one victim in detail. Reports from visits of so-called killing fields and mortuaries imply that there are far more victims that are not listed in the report. The report mainly covers Nairobi and the Central Province, which might induce a bias. (Link to Report).
    • Alston, Philip (2009): Promotion and Protection of all Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development. Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, Addendum, Mission to Kenya.
      Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of that time, visited Kenya in February 2009 following up claims of unlawful killings and the impunity of the responsible police forces. His work focuses on police violence in general and on extrajudicial killings during the post-election violence of 2007 and 2008. There is, however, a section about the Mungiki and a detailed account of the modus operandi of the death squad killings the Mungiki movement experienced in 2007 and 2008. Besides, in Appendix II some selected cases are described. (Link to Report).
    • United States Department of State (2012): 2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Prac- tices – Kenya.
      The cited report is a short study on the human rights situation in Kenya, written by the United States Depart- ment of State and published on Refworld, the world’s leading database with information necessary for taking quality decisions on refugee status. The report includes both a section about extrajudicial killings and en- forced disappearances in Kenya and lists a few examples, though mostly without naming the victims properly. (Link to Report).
    • Open Society Foundations and MUHURI (2013): „We’re Tired of Taking You to the Court.“ Human Rights Abuses by Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit.
      This report was a joint project by Jonathan Horowitz, a legal officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative’s National Security and Counterterrorism program, and staff members of the Kenyan NGO Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI). It is a study about the consequences of Kenya’s counterterrorism activities lead by the ATPU on the level of communities and individuals. To illustrate the modus operandi of the ATPU a few cases of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance, excessive force and other human rights violations towards terror suspects are described in detail. The incidences happened between 2011 and 2013, mainly in the area of Mombasa. The information was collected from other reports, newspaper articles and 40 interviews conducted by staff of MUHURI and the Open Society Justice Initiative. (Link to Report).
    • Human Rights Watch (2014): Kenya: Killings, Disappearances by Anti-Terror Police.
      Human Rights Watch documents in this report 10 cases of extrajudicial killings, just as many enforced disappearances and 11 cases of mistreatment or and harassment of terrorism suspects, probably conducted by counterterrorism units like the ATPU. Its focus lies in Nairobi and covers the years 2012 to 2013. (Link to Report).
    • KNCHR (2015): „The Error of Fighting Terror with Terror.“ Preliminary Report of KNCHR Investigations on Human Rights Abuses in the Ongoing Crackdown against Terrorism.
      This is a report delivered by KNCHR, Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights, in 2015. The report gives an overview of Kenya’s history of terrorism and the subsequent counterterrorism operations, including some legal background information. Most importantly, however, KNCHR conducted interviews with people who suffer from the consequences of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings or “egregious human rights violations” in general – arbitrary arrests, extortion, illegal detention, torture, killings, disappearances – be it victims or relatives. Their stories are cited in the report. Additionally, KNCHR spoke to opinion leaders, residents and state agencies. As well, the authors visited several sites in Wajir and Garissa counties suspected to be mass graves connected to the counterterrorism operations of the Kenyan government agencies. The enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings happened between 2013 and 2015. KNCHR documents detailed cases of 88 individuals in Wajir, Mandera, Garissa and Mombasa and 38 more cases to be further followed up in the areas of Wajir, Mandera, Garissa and Mombasa as well as Nairobi. This makes a total of 126 cases. KNCHR classifies 25 of them as extrajudicial killings and 81 as enforced disappearances. The classification is, however, not transparently declared. (Link to Report).
    • The Advocates for Human Rights (2015): Report on Enforced Disappearances in the Republic of Kenya Under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights in response to the Combines 8th-11th Periodic Report on the Republic of Kenya presented at the 57th Ordinary Session of the Commission November 2015.
      The Advocates for Human Rights is a US-based Human Rights Organization with Observer Status at the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. Representatives of the organization presented their findings on enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Kenya at the 57th Ordinary Session of the Commission in 2015. The report delivers a comprehensive overview of the situation and the legal framework in Kenya. A focus lies on individual cases of ethnic Somalis. (Link to Report).
    • Human Rights Watch (2016): Deaths and Disappearances. Abuses in Counterterrorism Operations in Nairobi and in Northeastern Kenya.
      The second report of Human Rights Watch on the issue of counterterrorism operations by Kenyan government agencies covers 34 cases of enforced disappearances in the counties of Nairobi, Man- dera, Garissa and Wajir as well as 11 cases of presumed extrajudicial killings in the same counties. The documented incidents happened in 2014 and 2015. The report delivers further information on Kenya’s military role in Somalia, terrorism attacks in Kenya and the subsequent counterterror- ism operations, the legal framework and the role of foreign donors of Kenya’s security forces. (Link to Report).
    • Murithi, Koome und Robi Chacha: Extrajudicial Killings in Kenya.
      Murithi and Chacha are the authors of a report that seems to have been written within a university context. The publication date is unknown. The paper gives a comprehensive overview about extrajudicial killings and to a lesser degree about enforced disappearances in Kenya. The authors look into violence of and against the Mungiki and killings and disappearances in the context of counter-terrorism actions of Kenyan police forces. The authors did not conduct their own interviews. Their findings rely on information of other reports. (Link to Report).
  2. Additional report added by the participants of the Capstone Course:
    • Haki Africa (2016): What do we tell the Families? Killings and Disappearances in the Coastal Region of Kenya, 2012-2016.
      Haki Africa is a Mombasa-based NGO working on different issues, including counterterrorism operations by Kenyan state agencies. For their report the authors conducted interviews with relatives and witnesses of those disappeared and killed, as well as with government officials and senior police officers. After a short introduction on the co “The Excessive Use of Force During Routine Policing Operations”, “Deaths in Police Custody”, “Extrajudicial Executions” and “En- forced Disappearances”. The covered incidences happened between 2012 and 2016 in Mombasa.(Link to Report).
  3. Newspaper articles / media:
    Newspaper articles / media: In the two-document Excel sheet made available to the participants of the Capstone Course, several cases were drawn from newspaper articles. Unfortunately, the exact source could not always be found. We tried to verify and complete the documentation by looking for information in any suiting newspaper article we could find on the internet. We did, however, not include additional cases from other national and international newspaper articles. Moreover, the information from the newspaper articles has to be handled with great care since it seems to be selective regarding time and media outlet.